| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Songs of Travel by Robert Louis Stevenson: Frost has bound our flowing river,
Snow has whitened all our island brake,
And beside the winter fagot
Joan and Darby doze and dream and wake.
Still, in the river of dreams
Swims the boat of love -
Hark! chimes the falling oar!
And again in winter evens
When on firelight dreaming fancy feeds,
In those ears of aged lovers
Love's own river warbles in the reeds.
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Bucolics by Virgil: Look, look I the very embers of themselves
Have caught the altar with a flickering flame,
While I delay to fetch them: may the sign
Prove lucky! something it must mean, for sure,
And Hylax on the threshold 'gins to bark!
May we believe it, or are lovers still
By their own fancies fooled?
Give o'er, my songs,
Daphnis is coming from the town, give o'er."
ECLOGUE IX
LYCIDAS MOERIS
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| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Complete Angler by Izaak Walton: The Perch grows slowly, yet will grow, as I have been credibly
informed, to be almost two feet long; for an honest informer told me,
such a one was not long since taken by Sir Abraham Williams, a
gentleman of worth, and a brother of the angle, that yet lives, and I wish
he may: this was a deep-bodied fish, and doubtless durst have devoured
a Pike of half his own length. For I have told you, he is a bold fish; such
a one as but for extreme hunger the Pike will not devour. For to affright
the Pike, and save himself, the Perch will set up his fins, much like as a
turkey-cock will sometimes set up his tail.
But, my scholar, the Perch is not only valiant to defend himself, but he
is, as I said, a bold-biting fish: yet he will not bite at all seasons of the
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The fourth excerpt represents the element of Earth. It speaks of physical influences and the impact of the unseen on the visible world, and is drawn from Dawn O'Hara, The Girl Who Laughed by Edna Ferber: countenance to exchange a series of meaning looks.
"I suppose," purred Mrs. Whalen, " that your awful
trouble was the real cause of your--a-a-a-sickness,
worrying about it and grieving as you must have."
She pronounces it with a capital T, and I know she
means Peter. I hate her for it.
"Trouble!" I chirped. "Trouble never troubles me.
I just worked too hard, that's all, and acquired an awful
`tired.' All work and no play makes Jill a nervous
wreck, you know."
At that the elephantine Flossie wagged a playful
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